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'2016: Obama' pure propaganda

A giant Guy Fawkes mask dominates an Occupy demonstration and symbolizes the contention of 'Occupy Unmasked' that the real power behind the movement is hidden. (Magnet)

Let's be honest right off the bat that "2016: Obama's America" and "Occupy Unmasked" have agendas.

"2016: Obama's America" is produced by Dinesh D'Souza, a former Reagan staffer, head of the conservative evangelical King's College and a member of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

"Occupy Unmasked" is produced by the nonprofit (meaning they suck up tax dollars if only by not paying them) Citizens United, whose past productions have included "Hillary: The Movie" and "Rediscovering God in America." This film was introduced by Michelle Bachman at its debut at the Right Online conference and has a box-cover endorsement from Sarah Palin - two people who think we are Taxed Enough Already and have mostly drawn paychecks that came from the government.

Peter Cushing, who helped usher the company into prominence, gives one last performance for Hammer.
(Submitted)

But I digress, or do I? With films that purport to unmask people or organizations it is fair to look at those making the revelations.

In the case of "Occupy Unmasked," which purports to reveal who is behind the Occupy movement, that would be the late Andrew Breitbart, who helped found The Huffington Post; he's also on screen most of the time shouting his opinions at the camera - and given that the film already has a volume at the threshold of pain, even with my TV volume at its lowest setting, this is such an annoying approach that I nearly bailed minutes in, but I wanted to find out who controls Occupy. Well it's the unions, particularly SEIU - and we are reminded later by Lee Stranaham (who I hope uses his fee from this production to buy some front teeth) that the unions never did anything for the workers, but are run by the Mafia.

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Breitbart offers as proof seeing a UAW employee texting at an Occupy event and concludes, "They're obviously texting back and making sure it's going right," even though he really doesn't know what the text message is or who it's going to. Another commentator alleges that it's a group of hackers known as Anonymous that have conceived and direct Occupy. Yet another claims that it is a collection of left-wingers who initially gathered after Katrina and dreamed up Occupy in between helping survivors of that disaster.

Somehow the Tri-Lateral Commisssion and the Illuminati escaped being fingered. But even if Breitbart and his fellow talking heads can't agree on who the evil masterminds are they know gullible college students are being used to foment class warfare and destroy the government and they've got no end of accusations to prove it.

D'Souza is big on supposition as well, starting with his contention that because he and Obama grew up in similar circumstances that he understands the president (though they've pursued highly dissimilar adult careers). D'Souza interviews a psychiatrist who, though he's never met Obama, diagnoses him (surely the APA frowns on this sort of thing). Two of D'Souza's interviews are depicted as being conducted by cell phone, though if a camera crew could be on hand at each end of the conversation the question arises as to why the heck D'Souza couldn't be there in person.

Add to that a sequence that supposedly proves racism no longer exists in the U.S. with a fictional scene where a young black man is apparently snubbed in a bar until it's shown that the two white guys who got up as soon as he sat down have gone to retrieve a birthday cake. (If racism really has vanished from America, perhaps D'Souza would care to explain the "Don't Re-Nig in 2012" bumper stickers that are around.) If these portions of the film are staged I can't help but wonder what other persiflage comes into play elsewhere.

Surely a nadir is reached when D'Souza badgers Obama's half-brother George, attempting to get him to say bad things about the President. That he won't doesn't stop D'Souza from declaring that George (a published author by the way) lives in a Nairobi slum because his brother won't help.

I could go on but it would simply be listing more suppositions and allegations; a little proof would go a long way by neither Breitbart or D'Souza offer any. And what of the two of them? Well, Breitbart posted the edited video excerpts of Shirley Sharrod's speech that forced her resignation from Department of Agriculture. When the full speech was disclosed she was apologized to and offered an even better job. So the guy has a history of misrepresentation meaning any "revelations" about Occupy need to be taken with a grain of salt.

And D'Souza is currently under investigation by his own college for alleged extramarital shenanigans. Now normally I don't give a fudge about such things but anyone who's assuming a position of moral superiority would do well to recall the old bromide about people who live in glass houses. Bottom line: Neither of these films is a documentary or even an expose; they're pure propaganda. If you're a member of the choir they're preaching to, then go wallow, but don't do so under any illusion that you're being served the truth.

"2016: Obama's America" / 2012 / Lionsgate / 90m / $19.98 / PG

"Occupy Unmasked" / 2012 / Magnet / 75m / $26.98 / unrated

HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR

In the late 1950s, a tiny British studio took the gamble that audiences were tired of science fiction and revisited Gothic horrors with a new version of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" in color and more vivid in its details - though what was graphic in 1957 is quite tame today.

The film's success with the ticket-buying public led to more of the same and so "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "The Horror of Dracula" led to further adventures of the Baron and the Count and assorted mummies and vampires and the odd werewolf, gorgon or snake woman. The '60s were good to Hammer but in the early 1970s the bottom fell out of the British film industry and Hammer, beset by other problems as well, went belly-up. It existed as a corporate name, collecting modest royalties from past productions and leasing its name to projects, such as the TV series "Hammer House of Horror."

Though not truly Hammer, the series did utilize the talents of many people associated with the company, including composers James Bernard and Leonard Salzedo, directors Peter Sasdy and Don Sharp, writer "John Elder" (actually Anthony Hinds son of one Hammer's founders), camera operator Neil Binney and, of course, Peter Cushing. The studio's trademark Gothic tales were eschewed in favor of modern settings however. While it's true that one of the causes of Hammer's demise was its inability to come to terms with changes in the horror genre, it does seem odd to invoke the Hammer name and then deliver almost nothing that resembles what made the company famous.

Oh, there's a werewolf story and another involving a group trying to raise a demon from the abyss with the use of John Dee's scrying mirror (one of the better episodes by the way). The very first episode features a witch (Patricia Quinn) who escapes execution by time travel, but a number of the stories don't have any supernatural content - apparent hauntings or whatever turn out to be plots to drive someone crackers - and far too many depend on some final surprise revelation that most will spot a mile off.

In the modern settings - particularly the art direction of them -- and given these non-surprise climaxes, the stories bear more resemblance to what Hammer's chief rival, Amicus, presented in its many anthology productions beginning with "Dr. Terror's House of Terrors." Amicus knew the value of getting in and out quickly, however; their stories only ran 10-15 minutes.

The "House of Horrors" episodes are thrice that length and too often feel padded. This isn't to suggest that the series is awful. The production values are good and the acting talent assembled is top-notch in even the smallest roles (look fast for a brief appearance by a pre-"Remington Steele" Pierce Brosnan). But they're liable to leave those familiar with the studio's theatrical presentations seriously underwhelmed.

1980 / Synapse Films / 702m (5 discs) / $39.95 [unrated]

MARIO BAVA

Back in the 1960s there were three directors who gained a reputation for specializing in horror films. In Hollywood there was Roger Corman turning the various works of Edgar Allan Poe into starring vehicles for Vincent Price, in Britain Terence Fisher was reinvestigating classic Gothic characters, and in Italy Mario Bava was inventing the genre in a country that had almost no history of making scary movies.

He started out as a cinematographer and special effects specialist and in that capacity worked on two of his country's earliest explorations into the fantastic: "I Vampiri" and "Caltiki the Immortal Monster." Bava would continue photographing others' films for a while even after he became started directing.

Photography and the devising of thrifty but convincing special effects remained his chief interest and the theory has been put forth that Bava selected projects based more on their photographic challenges than on the qualities of the scripts. This would explain both the awfulness of some of those scripts and his apparent indifference to narrative within them not to mention a filmography that encompasses "Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs" and "Hercules in the Haunted World, "Danger: Diabolik" and "Planet of the Vampires." In Bava's defense a casual attitude to narrative coherence is something of a trademark of Italian cinema and the ability to tackle successfully any genre is considered a positive attribute not the mark of a hack.

The first film for which Bava can take full credit is probably the best he ever made. "Black Sunday" (1960 / Kino Classics / 87m / $29.95 BluRay / unrated) has Asa (Barbara Steele), executed as a witch, resurrected two centuries later when travelers explore her tomb, thinking it an abandoned ruin. But Asa's descendents, including Katya (also Steele) still live in the castle nearby and Asa has determined to take Katya's place once she is fully reconstituted. The plot gets a little confused - Asa is described as a witch at some times and a vampire at others - but a mood of eerie poetry is so successfully evoked that lapses in logic are irrelevant.

Bava creates unforgettable images, beginning with the prologue in which Asa and her cohort Javutitch are condemned and Asa has a spike-lined mask hammered onto her face (the original Italian title translates as "Mask of the Demon"). Asa's reconstitution occurs in increments - her glowing eyeballs floating up into vacant eyesockets at one point - while Javutich just heaves himself up out of the earth over his grave. While these images are macabre, and more grotesque than anything previously committed to celluloid, the film is beautifully photographed in black and white chiaroscuro that calls to mind the etchings of Gustave Dore. The tone and the look of the film recall "White Zombie" (and the two would make a fascinating double feature) in creating the world of a dark and disturbing fairy tale.

"Hatchet for the Honeymoon" (1970 / Redemption Films / 88m / $24.95 BluRay / PG), on the other hand, is completely wackdoodle. It falls into the category of Italian thrillers known as giallos, a subgenre Bava is credited with bringing to the screen with his "the Telephone" segment of "Black Sabbath." The films generally feature a killer wearing tight black leather gloves and a solution that involves dragging in some character seen for only a few minutes early in the film.

To Bava's credit his feature-length forays into the form subvert it in various ways; "Hatchet" reveals the killer within a few minutes of its opening. Looking into the mirror while shaving he informs us, "My name is John Harrington. I am 30 years old. I am a paranoiac. ... The fact is I am completely mad, the realization of which annoyed me at first but is now amusing to me."

When he was a boy he witnessed the murder of his mother and stepmother on their wedding night but cannot remember the face of the killer so he hacks up brides (or in a pinch women in wedding gowns) because each time he does so he remembers more of the incident. Yes it's every bit as loopy as it sounds and nowhere near as gory as you might expect (which is a tad surprising). It is however a feast for the eyes with stunning sets and those kicky fashions of the time - and check out how often Harrington has some sort of chain motif worked into his clothing, suggesting his enslavement to his obsession. If style alone can get you through an hour and a half of film you'll want to watch this one. It's not high on my Bava list however.

The surreal "Lisa and the Devil" (1973 / Kino Classics / 95m / $29.95 BluRay, R) has Elke Sommer getting separated from her sightseeing group and ending up, along with her would-be rescuers, in a fabulous mansion on a huge estate after an automobile malfunction. The residents are all odd in various ways; the countess (Alida Valli) is blind and hardly welcoming while her son Max (Alessio Orano) is oddly eager for visitors; the butler (Telly Savalas) looks exactly like the devil in a fresco in the town square. (Savalas also frequently sucks on a lollipop to disguise his tobacco breath from his sightless employer - he'd port the lollipop over to his "Kojack" TV series.)

Sommers' rescuers and their chauffeur are killed off and a man who resembles a mannequin (is it the dummy come to life?) stalks Sommers. Mother and son hold a bizarre burial ceremony for the mannequin in the chapel and there's an unknown woman upstairs who cries behind closed doors. Except for a stinger ending that goes into WTF? territory everything really does make perfect sense (though maybe not on the first viewing; Bava subtly places explanatory action in the backgrounds of scenes and admittedly some of the explanations are a mite loony).

The film however was sufficiently confusing to audiences that the producer pulled it and had new scenes shot that featured Robert Alda as a priest and Sommer possessed and confined to a hospital after her ordeal. That permutation, dubbed "The House of Exorcism," is included and to my mind is actually the more confusing of the two; I advise you skip it. "Lisa" works beautifully in creating a nightmarish experience and as is usual with Bava the film drips with style; the director makes good use of the gorgeous and labyrinthine house to disorient the viewer in a plot that already verges on the surreal.

MARTHA AND FRIENDS

By Cthulhu's croutons! Martha Stewart has expanded her empire to include a cartoon series! I was unaware of this development - no one tells me anything - until I received the press release for this DVD. And I'll admit up front that I requested it out of pure morbid curiosity.

I wasn't expecting it to whelm me overly and it didn't. In the Halloween episode Martha, Lily and Hannah are finishing up their glampire costumes when they find out Kevin has written a horror movie that he wants to make using his dad's camcorder. Martha instantly takes charge and decides that if they throw a Halloween party in a certain old barn it will provide everything Kevin needs for his movie (that she hasn't yet read the script phases our little bossypants not one whit). In a twinkling they have cleaned the barn of all but the most ornamental cobwebs, made decorations and snacks and gotten other kids to attend on a moment's notice.

In the Thanksgiving episode Martha saves the day when her friends all have bratty relatives come to visit by brainstorming a scavenger hunt involving leaves; she also makes pumpkin pie from canned pumpkin - a detail that I found frankly shocking. In the Christmas episode Martha and her friends have just finished the last of their decorations (which they started making on December 26 of the previous year) when a crisis arises at the youth center and Martha saves the day - oh, never mind.

Suffice it to say that each episode involves Martha saving someone's bacon when cookies burn or pies get dropped on the floor or whatever and always accomplishes whatever task needs doing in such a short time that it defies the laws of time and space (unless she has access to a TARDIS). The only amusement is provided by her dogs, Francesca and Sharkey, who get the best lines. The only interesting aspect is the presence of Kevin, a ten-year-old who spends all his time with girls and joins them in crafts and scrapbook making - are you seriously going to try to convince me this boy isn't gay?

I'm astounded this series hasn't raised the kind of consternation that surrounded the Teletubbies show. The computer animation is rudimentary (I guess there are no hand-drawn cartoons made for TV any more) and the stories banal. Are kids really watching this show? The episodes are almost completely free of anything resembling excitement unless you consider sitting around making place cards out of pine cones exciting. Conflict and/or complications rarely raise their heads and when they do Martha is so quick to brainstorm a solution that there's no suspense involved. If this had been on when I was a tyke I'd have switched the channel to "Fireball XL-5" without delay.

2012 / Vivendi Entertainment / 66m / $14.93 [unrated]

SOMETHING BIG

Dean Martin hasn't been a star since he and Jerry Lewis broke up their act, though he sporadically pursued a movie career afterward, mostly in assorted Rat Pack pictures. Any other films also restricted him to supporting roles, so you can safely assume that any movie that headlines him is a minor affair. And "Something Big," despite its title and a very good cast is a minor affair.

It begins well with some oddball touches such as having Martin travel with a terrier in a leather bag on his horse and such details as a skeleton ensconced in a rocking chair in a saloon ("He said if his friends couldn't be with him he wanted to be with his friends," explains the owner raising the question of whether the body was there during the entire time it took to be reduced to bones). There's a very funny scene early on with Denver Pyle complaining to cavalry commander Brian Keith about the murder of his partner; when Keith declines to pursue the matter because the deceased was himself a killer Pyle threatens a series of actions including writing a letter, or rather finding someone to write a letter, of complaint.

Indications of trouble begin early with an obnoxious and frequently inappropriate score by Marvin Hamlish that includes a gag-inducing song that accompanies (and prolongs) Martin's ride with his gang to a rendezvous with fellow crook (Albert Salmi). Martin has plans for - you guessed it - something big and Salmi knows where he can get his hand on a Gatling gun an item that is mandatory for doing, well, something big.

Problem is, Salmi doesn't want money he wants a woman in payment so Martin starts holding up stagecoaches with an eye of procuring a female. That repellant attitude toward women is continued in the personages of two man-hungry female gold miners who will couple with anything in pants (the admirable Joyce van Patten does what she can to make her character amusing rather than grotesque but doesn't quite succeed). The woman Martin ends up kidnapping turns out to be Keith's wife (Honor Blackman) which brings the soldier and his scout (Ben Johnson) in pursuit.

Also enmeshed in the proceedings is David Huddleston essentially reprising his role in "Bad Company" as the guy selling the gun. Anyway (SPOILER ALERT), the "Something Big" turns out to be Martin liberating treasure stolen and amassed by another crook; I suppose because this other bandit is a less personable guy who doesn't travel with a pooch in a pouch or have dental work performed on his horse and because he and his gang aren't Caucasians we're supposed to see it as a just dandy when Martin mows down hundreds of them with the Gatling gun. I can't say I was as put off by this carnage as some critics have been but the whole movie failed the "So what?" test for me which is worse. Maybe a more charismatic, less lightweight lead than Martin would have helped but I doubt it.

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